The Art of Leadership
It takes a combination of many moves to be a good leader. A good leader is a master of many manoeuvres! Leaders engage in many manoeuvres to be successful. Jesus was a great example of a master of many manoeuvres.
- To be a good leader, you must be capable of moving out.
The disciples were given the explicit commandment to go into the world and preach the gospel, but they did not go because they had become happy and established in Jerusalem. They were stuck in the mud! This is a dangerous phenomenon! You must be capable of moving out of comfortable and cozy cities into the fields which are ripe unto harvest. There can be no clearer commandment than this:
“GO YE therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost” (Matthew 28:19).
But look at how long it took them to get going. From Matthew 28, it took eight long chapters in the book of Acts before they were dislodged from Jerusalem. They simply could not go because of the revival, the joy, the miracles and the church growth they were experiencing in Jerusalem.
Clearly, if you will not go with the commandment, you will be moved by troubles, tribulations and difficulties. Read it for yourself: And at that time there was a GREAT PERSECUTION against the church which was at Jerusalem; and THEY WERE ALL SCATTERED abroad throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles….Therefore they that were scattered abroad went everywhere preaching the word.
Acts 8:1-4
- To be a good leader, you must be capable of stopping. Stopping is a manoeuvre called! Jesus was capable of stopping. As Jesus was approaching Jericho, a blind man was sitting by the road begging.
Now hearing a crowd going by, he began to inquire what this was. They told him that Jesus of Nazareth was passing by. And he called out, saying, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” Those who led the way were sternly telling him to be quiet; but he kept crying out all the more, “Son of David, have mercy on me!”
AND JESUS STOPPED and commanded that he be brought to Him; and when he came near, He questioned him, “What do you want Me to do for you?” And he said, “Lord, I want to regain my sight!”
And Jesus said to him, “Receive your sight; your faith has made you well.”
Immediately he regained his sight and began following Him, glorifying God; and when all the people saw it, they gave praise to God.
Luke 18:35-43 (NASB)
As Jesus approached Jericho, He heard a cry that stopped Him in his tracks. It was blind Bartimaeus who stopped Jesus Christ on His journey to Jerusalem. Jesus Christ was capable of stopping even though He was already in motion. You must be able to stop what you are doing even though you are already in motion. There are crusades that we had prepared for that we simply stopped. Why not? You must be able to stop!
A good car must be able to stop anywhere! A good minister must be able to stop preaching after twenty minutes if that is what is required of you. It cannot be that you can only preach for one hour.
God is teaching you how to manoeuvre. You must be flexible, ready to go for days but also be ready to stop dead in your tracks. Balaam the prophet was unable to stop going in the wrong direction even though the angel warned him. That is a very dangerous thing. In the end, the donkey was forced to speak to the prophet.
- To be a good leader, you must be able to stop-and-start again. Jesus Christ was able to start, to stop and start again! He said He would not go up to the feast. A few days later, He changed his mind and said, ‘I’m going up.’ He went up, and this time, He went up secretly.
Go ye up unto this feast: I GO NOT up yet unto this feast; for my time is not yet full come. When he had said these words unto them, he abode still in Galilee. But when his brethren were gone up, THEN WENT HE also up unto the feast, not openly, but as it were in secret.
John 7:6-10
Jesus commended someone who turned around. “A certain man had two sons; and he came to the first, and said, Son, go work today in my vineyard. He answered and said, I will not: but afterward he repented, and went” (Matthew 21:28-30). You can stop!
You can move out! You can stop, but you can start again!
theaol@ymail.com
By Dag Heward-Mills